Tuesday, 29 March 2011

As a group we recieved both negavtive and positive feedback from our class mates during our lesson. After watching eachother's thrillers we all noted down feedback for each group. A lot of the sounds; diegetic and non-diegetic where identified to have been both effective and uneffective. We also recieved personal comments about our acting which i was every pleased with. I appreciate the truth of our classmates because this way we are able to note down elements which we could improve if we could. By looking at other thrillers we also got a chance to ask other groups about how they achived their final product, this gave me an idea of the ways we could improve our final film. Other than the feedback we gained from our peers, we also had our own feedback about our opening in relation to what our peers said. Good use of feedback helps us as individuals in the future advice on how to produce great openings.

I think if we also got feedback from different age groups, i would determine if we made the right decisions when selecting our target audience. This feedback could expand our audience but it could also limit our audience.

I found that many people liked the voice over that we did because it was something different and nobody else did it or included an effect like this which i think made our opening unique.

Quiet a few people said that our lighting could have been a bit better or be improved because some shots were a bit dark, but we were aiming for this kind of dark dull look.

People liked our choice of shots and the way we edited some of them. In the end our actor Greg got a few comments as well as they said he really looked dead so that was very good (so having talking powder on your face did pay of after all GREG)

Overall I am really proud of our work because we worked on this so hard within a short amount of time obviously we had more time we would make it much more better to enhance our audience into the film.

In todays lesson we watched the classes title sequences and gave feedback to them of how we thought their title sequence suited to its purpose; to entertain and interest the target audience.

The feedback we received was interesting as it enabled us to see whether our original target audience (16 to 19 year olds) related to the title sequence. The feedback was mostly positive, showing that our target audience did relate to the title sequence. The lighting was commented on as effective mostly, however, one person did comment that it was too dark.. although the majority of our target audience did comment that it was very effective in building the suspense; in my opinion, this shows that the use of lighting helped in producing an effective title sequence for our target audience as it was mostly received as effective.

Another element which was heavily commented by the class was the first shot. this shot was of a clouded window which we used as a first shot as we thought it would help to establish the mood of the title sequence through the use of pathetic fallacy. This proved to be effective amongst our target audience as it was commented as very effective from several members of the audience.

Overall, I would say that the title sequence did appeal to our intended audience; 16 yearn olds and over and was suitable to rate as a 16+

I am very pleased with our final edit of our film, i feel that everything we planned worked out mostly how we wanted it to, if we were to do the film again the only thing I think that may have improved it is to have used a better microphone for the recording of the dialogue.

In terms of the media in the UK, there are usually two or three types of classes that are portrayed on the media; the Upper Class, the Middle Class and the Working Class. The Upper class usually consists of the peerage,gentry and landowners. These people were traditionally the wealthiest in the land having inherited money and position. The middle class usually consists of Middle middle class in Britain often consists of people with a tertiary education.They would be engaged in owning and running businesses; working for larger corporations in management and middle management; teaching, social work and engineering, accountancy, information technology, as doctors and other skilled jobs, but they also often work in the traditional professions (law, the military, finance, the clergy, and medicine) The lower class/working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs (as measured by skill, education and lower incomes), often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes. Working classes are mainly found in industrialised economies and in urban areas of non-industrialised economies.Eastenders is a great example of how this is portrayed, they have a middle class doctor and a working class single mother.

For our opening we wanted to include voicemails for the husband. We thought this would be a good way to set the scene of the story and give the audience an understanding that this man had not been in contact with anyone for a while.

In order to do this we needed to somehow record record messages off of a phone, Kudiwa and I thought the easiest way to do this would be to use a video camera to record one end of the line on loudspeaker, whilst I got various people in other rooms to leave messages depicting various scenarios the husband had missed.

Music is important for the opening. It is able to create suspense or create a calm atmosphere, helpful in order to shock and 'grip in' the audience. The music had to be calm but also with an eerie and suspenseful tone, we left the music decision to Greg as he had most experience with making music.

I watched the rough cut and think that it is relatively good for a rough cut opening, many things will need to be improved however, the basic layout of what we wanted is there such as the inclusion of many different camera shots(such as extreme closeups) I think more titles need to be added but the text of the titles is quite suitable for our opening and the music fits quite well with the fim. However, small improvements may have to be made still.

Editing is a tricky process but essential to create an effective title opening. Editing requires a lot of patience. For example fitting the many scenes we filmed to look smooth and natural is hard to do, and making the music fit well with the camera scenes was very difficult also.

In order for us to create our opening effectively, we had consider all aspects that came with creating a film, including the mis-en-scene.
We decided that Kudiwa's house was most suitable for filming due to factors such as its location and also that it was the easiest to create our desired setting for the opening.
We decided that we wanted our setting to take place in a house/ flat in order to create the impression to our audience that the house is not a place of safety; hoping to cause intrigue in the audience and also to ensure that they want to see how it came to be that someones place of refuge, or home, has been invaded and the followup to that.
Furthermore, for our opening we had to ensure that the audience is able to gain a hint of who or what the character's are to cause interest, to deepen their knowledge of the film but ensure they do not receive too much knowledge so that their interest in the film is deepened; the main aim of the title opening.
We decided that the use of stereotypes were helpful in creating an effective impression to the audience of who the characters were and what they did. For example, we wanted to represent to the audience clearly that the woman was successful and a working woman, so we decided to dress her in a suit as she is a focal character in the film and so some knowledge of who she is is needed in order to create a successful title opening.

Whilst editing we listened to a numberof soundtracks...The video above shows the 1st song we listened to... it was very effective and went along with our movie very well. In making our own sound tracks we used this song as inspiration.

In all our final soundtrack is not the same as this song but it portrays the same effects on the audinces..making them feel uneasy and not able to feel comfortable although the sound may sound very peaceful.

The video above shows the sort of makeup we used to make our main character of Delilah to look very natural and femanine at the same time. We didnt want her to look 'tooo' made uo we wanted a very nutural look because her character's life at home is very different from her life at work. At work she 'fits in' with the rest with a different attitude than and home.

I did my own makeup because i am used to doing my makeup every suttle...
I used these products....

I find the works of Steven Spielberg to be very effective in engaging and involving the audience in his thrillers, so I have decieded to research his work....

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About:Steven Allan Spielberg (born December 18, 1946)[4] is an American film director, screenwriter, film producer, video game designer and studio executive. In a career spanning four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an archetype of modern Hollywood blockbuster filmmaking. In later years, his films began addressing such issues as the Holocaust, slavery, war and terrorism. He is considered one of the most Steven Allan Spielberg (born December 18, 1946)[4] is an American film director, screenwriter, film producer, video game designer and studio executive. In a career spanning four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an archetype of modern Hollywood blockbuster filmmaking. In later years, his films began addressing such issues as the Holocaust, slavery, war and terrorism. He is considered one of the most influential filmmakers in the history of cinema.[5] He is also one of the founders of DreamWorks movie studio.

Spielberg won the Academy Award for Best Director for Schindler's List (1993) and Saving Private Ryan (1998). Three of Spielberg's films, Jaws (1975), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), and Jurassic Park (1993), achieved box office records, each becoming the highest-grossing film made at the time. To date, the unadjusted gross of all Spielberg-directed films exceeds $8.5 billion worldwide. Forbes puts Spielberg's wealth at $3.0 billion.

WOOOW! it seems like just yesterday that we where given this task. Me and my groupd have worked hard to develop our thiller opening...
We spent much of our time planning so that is was easier for us to get straight to the filming.
If i had a choice i would have had more time and a bigger group because there are a number of tasks that are very difficult to do with just 4members. It was mainly difficult for us because the we didnt use other people to act...We did this ourselfs.
We have until 3pm today to submit our work/ seems like a very impossible task right now because we want to perfect many things including the music and the shots. The difficulty of all this running smoothly is the amount of people that will need to do the same today... sos i am expecting; limited computers (first come first serve).....

For our film, we decided to record the actors voices in order for our audience to perceive the voices as part of a telephone answering machine. We have done this by recording with a camera and placing the audio as a voiceover in the opening title. This is so that we are able to show to our audience that somebody (the person revealed at the end of the opening sequence) is missing but still creates an element of mystery as we do not know why or how they came to be missing. This is done so that enough knowledge is enabled to be gained by the audience, but not too much so that the audience is still intrigued by the opening title.

During my lunch time i spent time editing and uploading things to the blog. we have two media lessons; 1hour45min and a 3hour lesson, leaving only 4.45mins to finish editing...we still have a number of things to do before our deadline...adding titles and a lot more, so far i am happy because we already have some music which was Made by Greg smart.

Sunday, 20 March 2011

When planning any practical film work, we must look at what exactly it is we are going to put in the film. This can be doen by putting certain objects in the camera or putting the camera before objects found 'on location'.

Mise-en-scene is a french term borrowed from the theatre, Which literally means 'placed on stage'. The term is commonly used in film studies.

Element of mise-en-scene:

Setting/Decor

Costume and make up

Body language/ movement

Lighting

Props

It should not be thought of just 'props'. The information given in mise-en-scene can inform the viewer about all aspects of the programme and as we will see, careful selection of these five elements can lead to the construction of a completely different world.

Setting/ Decor
Setting can provide not only geographical backdrop to a film but it can also give us emotional or psychological tone. It can set the tone and the atmosphere and provide us as an audience with the historical time or the state of the the main character is going through. How a room is decorated and how objects are used to furnish that room provides another way in which meaning can be evoked. Decor can relay information about a character,genre, atmosphere and setting.

Costume and Makeup
We all make judgements of people everyday of our lives based on their clothing. Costume can ground a programme historically and provide information on social and cultural background. Naturalistic can show social class and over the top costumes help to create the atmosphere of science fiction TV. Costumes are often used to indicate narrative changes in the characters mood or role (Cinderella and other 'rags to riches' stories). Sexual attraction and power ( very important in film narrative) can be shown through costume .

Body language/ Movement
The way characters stand, move or rest is a key to us for 'reading' their characters. A nervous character maybe jumpy and continuously looking around, while a confident character may walk slowly with their head held high. Body language can be an indicator of how a character feels at any point. Body language can also indicate character relationships to one another- a character who is more powerful, threat, may loom over another.

Lighting
It is worth remembering that nothing can be seen (therefore filmed) without light. Lighting is hugely important in generating mood and atmosphere. It can throw shadows , illuminate key objects or exaggerate or emphasis a characters features. Lighting can intensity or soften the mood of a programme or a character.

Props
Props can play a key role in determining the plot of a programme- a camera might linger on a murder weapon, or the proof of infidelity. Props are an easy visual way to communicate a characters intentions.

The job of a editor is to study clips and then decide which are the most effective and literally sticking them together. Before digital technology these would have been literally stuck in place with scissors, hence phrases like 'Cuts'

The editor's role is to convey specific meanings to the audience. They have to consider how certain footage can convey meaningful narrative for the audience, which generates the responses that they wish for. Editing is a massively effectively important part of the construction of a programme and it's meaning and its importance shouldn't be underestimated.

Creating character Identification through editing
We are normally encouraged to identify with a certain character in a narrative. Editing plays a major part in this. The majority of shots in a scene will be shown either of a certain character, or from their point of view. Shots of other characters will show them in relationship to the main character.

Editing and Time
Editing can speed up or slowdown time. Editing can cut out boring chunks of events that the audience don't need to see, skipping through time. It can slow down time through the use of long continuous shots or even the use of slow motion effects.

Rhythm
Each shot takes up a certain amount of time on the screen. If the shots are similar kinds of length we can say they have rhythm, as the action moves along or the story unfolds at a certain place. Shots which break this rhythm may attract out attention- a shot that lasts a long time can build tension, a very short shot can show us a detail which might pique out interest. Rapid shots can give the impression of fast, exciting action. A sequence of slower shots might create a romantic, introspective mood.

In our final opening of a thriller film we need to have different production titles and credits. To do this effectively we watched different thriller openings on Youtube, to get an idea of how we can do this.

They keep the audience at the edge of their seats as the plot builds towards a climax

the main character(s) is placed in a menacing situation or mystery, or an escape or dangerous mission in which the escape seems impossible their life is threatened, usually because the main character is unsuspecting or unknowingly involved in a dangerous or potentially deadly situation

thrillers keep the emphasis away from the gangster, crime, or the detective in the crime-related plot, focusing more on the suspense and danger that is generated

The themes of thrillers frequently include terrorism, political conspiracy, pursuit, or romantic triangles leading to murder. These are all things faced by individuals in the audienece troughout their everyday life making it easier for them to feel empathy/ sympathy for a character.

Since most psychothrillers are still produced by mainstream institutions there will be certain basic gratifications that will apply such as....

Star Appeal;, eg. Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman in Seven.Diversion;, Basic entertainment or pleasure from the narrative.Personal Identity;, As Se7en is seemingly more 'complex' than other typical Hollywood films that use Star appeal, people may associate themselves with this film to appear more intelligent.

Personal relationships;, Sin City and Se7en are bothcommerciallypopular and as such, people may watch the film for social purposes, to be able to engage in social conversations about the film.

However there may be other gratifications such as.......

Transgressive pleasures - This is where voyeurism (watching something through anothers perspective, often the lead characters, that we are not 'supposed' to see) provides pleasure. Eg. Watching Marion Crane through the 'peep hole' that we see Norman using.

Enigma of revealing the mystery or crime through a clue based narrative may be one of the biggest pleasures (Barthes HERMANUTIC CODE). Eg. Seven through its seven deadly sins.

Visceral Thrill and Oneiric feel

Since it is more "complex" and deep, sometimes villains can be ambiguous or sympathized with, eg. (seven) where John doe explains the art of his crime and makes fun of Brad. Because of this most of these films tend to be rated R. Or a simple gratification may be the binary oppositions between brad and freeman or the battle between Freeman and Johndoe's battle.

In Psycho, the male roles are 'active' as they advance the plot. The woman is still the victim. In Seven, the role of women in the film is less significant than the males, like Psycho they are often victims. Therefore It could be argued that a male audience would be more attracted to this genre as they can identify or aspire to the 'tough', 'cool' or 'desirable' male representation.However in Sin City, a contemporary text, there is a more prominent and 'active' role for females (for example the dominance of women in Old Town). However the film also draws upon the traditional and somewhat sexist use of women as sex objects and victims.

The target audience of many psycological thrillers are 15/18+. This is because they usually include a lot of violence and psycological issues which can be very disturbing for many younger viewers. There are usually warnings at the back of a dvd stating the reasons for the rating e.g. Violence, Drugs and Sexual scenes.

Films With a Similar Target Audience
‘Vacancy’ directed by Nimrod Antal

Sunday, 13 March 2011

We have finished filming, but we still have a lot to do with so little time. Next lesson we must spend editting the clips on live cut pro, and if possible we must try to get some sound into our title sequence. With so much to do, im am on my tip toes as to how our final product will turn out.

To do list;

Titles including the main title

Sound edits

Voice overs for beginning

This week of 14th really needs a lot of time and focus which we must bring to the table; with this we can have a perfect product complete even before our deadline. I have faith that me and my group will do this.

In our lesson we where introductory to the cameras we would be working with during our Thriller filming. In this lesson we learnt the safety, and the correct ways in which to use the camera.

inserting the memory card; We where given two memory cards which hold approx 2hours of filming, these are placed into slots A and B... both of them should be in both slots in case one runs out of memory it will automatically switch to the second slot.

inserting the battery correctly; when inserting the battery, you must slide it into place towards the right of the camera

To put the camera on to the tripod; make sure it is securely on so it does not fall off during filming.

To adjust the tripod, release the locks on the foot and pull or push depending on the length you desire the securely lock into place.

You would normally need a specific reason to get this close. It is too close to show general reactions or emotion except in very dramatic scenes.

Two-shot

Two-shots are good for establishing a relationship between subjects.

A two-shot could also involve movement or action. It is a good way to follow the interaction between two people without getting distracted by their surroundings.

Over the Shoulder shot

This shot is framed from behind a person who is looking at the subject. The person facing the subject should usually occupy about 1/3 of the frame.

This shot helps to establish the position of each person, and get the feel of looking at one person from the other's point of view.

It's common to cut between these shots during a conversation, alternating the view between the different speakers

Ms-Mid shot

The mid shot shows some part of the subject in more detail, whilst still showing enough for the audience to feel as if they were looking at the whole subject. In fact, this is an approximation of how you would see a person "in the flesh" if you were having a casual conversation. You wouldn't be paying any attention to their lower body, so that part of the picture is unnecessary.

We made changes in the way that we Incorporated our brief, instead of using a room we used a lift as part of our mise en scene.

Our Prelim did not have any connection with our final film, but it gave us a chance to explore the different ways of creating an effective Thriller with minimal props,characters and mise en scene. This short film is about a girl who is waiting for a lift to the 4th floor, she is unaware that she is going to take a trip with a murderer who kills his victims if they are not to take a stop at the forth floor.
Filming our prelim was quite difficult because we filmed it in college where many students where around. This made is difficult to incorporate certain things in our film because we where not able to go to certain floor because too many students where there and this would have distracted our filming.
Although we have not used the same idea for our final title sequence, we have used the same sub genre which is Psychological thriller. We have played with the idea manipulating an everyday object/routine of using the lift into a thriller aspect.
Sound;
Our film did not have any Non diegetic sounds, this was mainly because of the time we had on our hands. This was both an advantage and a disadvantage because, without non diegetic sounds it is harder for us to set the mood of the film. The advantage of not using these is that our dialogue was clear. With more time to edit our film, our film would have had sound effects for certain sounds in the film e.g. Smoke puff, lift opening, the lift being opened. This would have been very effective because it would have given us the opportunity to amplify or distraught certain sounds to create an uneasy feeling.

Edit;
I would not say our editing is at its best, a lot of our shots cut suddenly and not smoothly. If we wanted to fix this we could use different transitions to fit with our clip. We effectively used Match cut to show a mid shot of one of the characters smoking into a close up of him inhaling the smoke. We used the flashback effect by rewinding the beginning so that our character is doing things backwards then this fades into our next shot. This makes is seem as though our character's life has been rewinded to show the events before he was smoking.

During the first part of the film we see a person smoking yet the way things happen in these two shots is backwards. This plays with the idea of making the normal abnormal, which is the main element we have stuck which in our final film.

Mise en scene;
We have used casual clothing, this represents that the characters each are following their own agenda of their daily routine. The casual clothing also show a representation of their age (teenagers) and period of time (21st century). The lighting in all of the shots is natural without edits, this was one of the areas of our film we where disappointed with. The natural lighting made different shot which where meant to link together not fit smoothly. The characters use different body language to reveal aspects of their character...

This character connotes someone very shy

or someone who is scared. This is shown

through their lack of eye contact.

This character connotes a happy person

or someone who is very confident shown;

through his smile and eye contact.

Camera;
We used close ups to get the facial expressions of the characters in reaction to new surroundings and certain dialogue. Over the shoulder shot to show the two character's conversation, the main reason of doing this is we get to see how the character is being impacted by what is being said by the other. Low and high angle shots are used to show the status of the characters, also used to emphasise the fear one has towards the other. We use camera tilt to build suspense at the end of the film, the character talks down someone/ something not shown on the screen. A dead body is slowly revealed in a slow tilt down.

Camera,Edit, mise en scene and Sound all play a very big part in effectively creating suspense in our film. The mistakes and errors and also the skills and techniques used in our prelim will go on to be used in our final film.

Today we did more editing and fixed up any miss takes or slip ups from last times editing. This editing process is long but fun too. We explored with some soundtracks aswell, as well will be needing one of our own.

Tuesday, 8 March 2011

Today we went through all the shots we took for our film, we checked to see thst they were good enough to uses in our opening. Once we did that and we were happy with them we began constructing them and putting it together on final cut pro until we ran out of time.

Thursday, 3 March 2011

We know that voice over’s often used to create effect so we choose to use it in our film, voicemails are going to be left by his friends and work colleagues and boss trying to get hold of him. We are going to have this playing over while everything is happening showing a real case of abnormality within the house.

We have taken photographs of the types of shots we are looking to shoot in the first part of our title sequence. In this sequence lasting aproximately 20-25 seconds we will use fast jumpy shots and edits to create the feeling something is not right about this normal everyday kitchen.

Different utensils will be effective as we will be zooming out from extreme close ups, so at the beginning of the shot the veiwer will be unsure of what it is exactly that they are being shown.

We will be using non digetic sounds aswell as digetic to make the sequence more fast moving and tense. Effects such as white noise will be very effective for moving in and out quickly with close ups, as it will give the illusin that the camera is being dragged through air or wind. Noises such as the kettle boiling will be amplified to create a suspensful undertone to the sound.